WAR NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 August 1916, Page 8

WAR NEWS.

THE OFFICERS' LODGING. W rites a British officer from Fran'ce:— '•in that village it seemed (no place could be found to serve as a mess for my friend, Captain , and his company officers, when they arrived. The Mayor was, of course, appealed to. An hour later Captain and his brother officers iwcre comfortably established in a convenient tiny house. They find a white-haired old lady sweeping out the already perfectly clean, paved main room in which they were to eat. All unasked, tlie same gently-smiling old lady helped their batmen to prepare a meal. Outside a tottery old man, with almost transparent skin, was busily raking together odd bits of wood to serve them for fuel. ''Late that night Captain came along from the temporary battalion orderly room at the Mairie, and making bis way into the company mess, paused to flash his torch into an open-sided shed without a door. There lie saw the kindly old lady lying asleep. Every sort of straw was needed for forage, but some rough sweepings had been found to serve her for a pillow; her husband's coat, was about her shoulders, and across that was his thin right arm; for the parchment-faced old man lay beside her. There was 110 straw for him, and he was awake still. "Hardly bears talking ahout, does it? Well, thank goodness, Captain is the true sort of Englishman, as you know. He soon had tiie old couple in the little house and his batmen out of warm kitchen into the shed, and a comfortable bed. of which his own Wolseley valise formed tlie foundation, made up lor the old couple on the kitchen floor. But, mark you, they never said a word about having ever occupied the house, let alone suggested that our offii cers had turned them out of it."

HUNGARY WEAKF.XIXG. A neutral traveller, writing in tlie London Daily Telegraph, says:—"There are many indications that would lead one to conclude that it is in Budapest tlrnt the first signs oi the weakening of the Germano-Austio-Huiigarian alliance may be looked for. The Magyars were prepared for a war that might last twelve or even eighteen months, but with the nearing end of the second year of war the old habits of personal animosity and political obstruction have again come to the fore. The pessimistic and confused state of public opinion, the ever-widening broach between the various parties, the half-hearted support accorded to the Government in power, the absence of energetic measures needed to increase the resisting power of the nation, or for the husbanding of resources, and tiie continued clashes with Vienna, point significantly to a debacle which may be provoked hv the slightest incident. Magyar leadership in the Dual Monarchy has been brought about by the strength and ability of such men as Count Tisza. Just as the Magyars occupy within their own boundaries a- position of prcpon importance, based on the weakness of other groups of inhabitants, so J r \jyar statesmen have been able to gain the upper hand in the affairs of the Dual Monarchy. As a result the Magyars have played the vole of ii. Great Power, all out of proportion to the natural development, culture or numbers of their people. That by throwing themselves whole-heartedly in the arms of the Germans, by substituting a ilohenzollern for a Hapsburg, the Magyar hegemony in Hungary may continue to survive would appear doubtful. Reduced to their true natural boundaries, the Magyarszag, "the land of the Magyar,' is destined in all probability to become T'.nr--■>' s*aW I